A star-kissed travelogue

http://www.thestar.com/editorial/movies/full_reviews/MOV991223ENT01c_MO-RIP24.html

The Talented Mr. Ripley  AA

By Peter Howell
Toronto Star Movie Critic


Assessing Matt Damon's performance as the dangerously deceitful title
character of The Talented Mr. Ripley has everything to do with whether
or not you've seen Alain Delon in Purple Noon.

The latter film, made in 1961 by Rene Clement and revived a few years
backby an admiring Martin Scorsese, was the original screen version of
Patricia Highsmith's first Ripley novel. It starred French film icon
Delon in a role that established him as the archetype of Eurocool.

Delon played American psycho Tom Ripley as chic, sinister and utterly
amoral, barely batting his baby blues as he violently furtheredhis
social-climbing ambitions in the Italy of '58-'59. He was mesmerizing
in the role, as hot as the Mediterranean sun which bathed every frame.

Damon, as directed and scripted by Anthony Minghella (The English
Patient), takes the opposite tack: Ripley becomes nerdish, weak and
conflicted, an impression accentuated by the addition of a pair of
bookish spectacles.

He is every bit as opportunistic as Delon's Ripley and every bit as
sun-kissed (the Italian settings still make you want to call your
travel agent), but he seems driven more by desperation than by design.

For a movie that is not so much about what a man is capable of, but
what he is capable of getting away with, Damon's version of Ripley
pales next to Delon's. You shouldn't see Purple Noon first if you're
keen to see The Talented Mr. Ripley.

And there are good reasons to see the new film, both for the scenery
and the generally fine acting, which in addition to Damon includes a
veritable Who's Who of current screen stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude
Law, Cate Blanchett and Philipp Seymour Hoffman.

Set as before in late-50's Italy, it depends mainly on Damon, who is
in nearly ever scene. Damon justifies the attention, making us feel
Ripley's pain, as a man who wants to be with the in-crowd, even if it
kills him - or somebody else.

``I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a
real nobody,'' he admits.

The fake somebody he lusts to be is the image of Dickie Greenleaf
(Law), the indulged son of a New York shipping magnate. Dad is
wealthy enough to fund Dickie's life of indolence on the beaches of
rural Italy, the cobbled streets of Rome and the canals of Venice.

``My father builds boats; I sail them,'' Dickie says dreamily,
oblivious to the envy he engenders.

Ripley's first meeting with Dickie is part of a rapidly escalating
series of deceptions. A humble washroom attendant mistaken for a
Princeton player by Dickie's father, Ripley has been sent to Italy
as a bounty hunter, promised cash if he can convince the prodigal
playboy to return home and get a job.

But Ripley instead falls in with Dickie, the playboy's beautiful
girlfriend Marge (Paltrow) and his drinking buddy Freddie
(Hoffman). Ripley is only too happy to join in the party funded by
Dickie's father.

His appreciation of Dickie, however, is motivated by more than
money. Ripley is both emotionally and physically attracted to
Dickie. The crush isn't mutual, and is in fact rebuffed.

Hurt and angry, Ripley reacts with rage, setting in motion events
that add layer upon layer of deceit, as he forces his way into a
world he had previously viewed only from the outside.

Literary purists will appreciate that Damon is closer in spirit to
Highsmith's vision of Ripley, the embodiment of her career thesis
that anyone - even a four-eyed nerd - is capable of extreme acts,
if the motivation is right.

The new adaptation also captures the ambivalence of the novel's
ending, which Purple Noon didn't, and it foregrounds the
homosexuality that is very much a part of Highsmith's writings.
Ripley's homosexuality, which Clement and Delon only hinted at in
Purple Noon, is a significant and somewhat troubling part of the
plot of The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Damon is clearly not comfortable playing a gay character and the
movie is heavy with insinuation: Are we to think he sins because
of his sexual orientation?

It's this kind of equivocation that makes this Ripley seem less
sinister and slightly less talented than the one we've seen before.


Contents copyright c 1996-1999, The Toronto Star.
User interface, selection and arrangement copyright c 1996-1999,
Torstar Electronic Publishing Ltd.